Egyptian population census : about 80 millions with a fixed increase rate .

-Area : about 1001449 km2 .considered one of the biggest Arabian countries in the world .

-the extension of the Nile is 6700km, considered as one of the longest rivers in the world .

-Regime : republican, ruled by the president Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt from 6 oct . 1981 .he          was reelected in 2005 for a new delegation lasts for 6 years

-Language : Arabic is the official language in Egypt, however lots of Egyptians speak English especially those who work in tourism field .

-The national currency : the Egyptian pound which is abbreviated to (L .E ) , one pound is divided into 100 Piaster ( 100 kirsch in Arabic ) there is a paper of one, five, ten, twenty, fifty, hundred and two hundred pounds .

-The Egyptian kitchen : it is a mixture of variety of Mediterranean kitchens (ex : Turkish and Greek kitchens ) especially the Syrian and Lebanese kitchens .dishes of food are put on a table and every one gets what he needs .

-Egyptian climate : Mediterranean climate on the coasts (Alexandria ) , half desert climate on Cairo .complete desert climate on the south .winter begins in December and ends in February .

-Degree of temperature rate : from 8 to 15 degree in autumn from 25 - 30 degree from the north to the south .

-In summer : high degree of temperature ranges from 40 to 50C

-Information deserved to be mentioned :
-Hotels : the category of hotels is determined by the government .  The price includes bed and breakfast only .all the other meals and drinks are excluded .

-Tips : it is not mandatory, but it is an Egyptian tradition not included in the prices list .
-Places and sights entrance : entrance fees are excluded to make a sort of flexibility (options )
-The navigation in the Nile is conditioned by the hours of Esna’s gates openings and the density of Embarkation which may retard the cruiser .

The gate of Esna closes from 01\06 to 30\06 and from 30\11 to 16\12 every year . The visit to Luxor will be made by the wheel from Esna, and the cruiser will station behind the gate .Your installation inside your chamber begin at 13\14 : 00h .and it must be left no more than 12 : 00h .

Ancient Egypt



Egypt is the meeting point of east and west with the African south .Egypt ,the world of the pharaohs as it appears to the modern visitor .it is about famous men and women of a bygone age whose achievements can be still appreciate ,whose work is still inspected for perfection by thousands of tourists in more than 50 languages .It is about mummies and treasures ,about Sphinx and pyramids ,about majesty ,super -macy . magic and eternity .It is a wealth of fascinating facts in word ,diagram and colorful illustration ,it is a worthily companion which will enable you to remember your exciting experience in Egypt ,all these facts lead us to ask ,whose Pharaohs .

Pharaohs 

Pharaoh ,was the son of the sun god Ra, the eldest and wisest of the gods by a mortal woman .His destiny to rule was bestowed upon him at the time of conception ,but the divine aura of ruler ship descended upon him only after the death of his predecessor and after the appropriate ritual was observed .The king’s spirit soared to the sky and merged with his father ,the sun .The king is represented as larger than normal human beings .His regalia consisted of various crowns .The full royal protocol consisted of five formal titles . Each followed by one of the king’s five names .The most commonly used formal titles were “king of upper and lower Egypt “ (fourth title ) and (son of Re )( the sun god )(fifth title )
Famous names such as Ramses, Amenhotep and Tutankhamen, or Seti are all fifth names the earliest and most sacred royal formal title was the first one “Horus”, through this title, The Egyptian king was identified with the falcon –god Horus, the son of Osiris .modern historians have reconstructed the order of the Egyptian kings and have classified them into thirty dynasties .

Shadow on the ancient Egyptian life :

Egyptian language :

The knowledge of the ancient Hieroglyphic script, in which countless inscriptions of the Pharaonic period were painted or carved on the monuments was lost .The secret of the Hieroglyphic gradually died away after the advent of Christianity in Egypt . The latest Hieroglyph inscriptions were carved on a wall of the temple of Isis on the island of Philae .

Champollion and the discovering of the Rosetta stone :



The importance of Coptic became apparent as Champollion attempted to decipher the Rosetta stone ,preparation ,he had studied the Coptic language as a tool in 1822 .Champollion had seen copies of texts from Egyptian temples in Nubba that contained the cartouches of  Thumose iii and  Ramses ii .Knowing of the possible meaning of the royal names from Coptic as well as the knowledge of Thutmose and Ramses from ancient Greek authors , he realized the dual principle within the EGYPTIAN hieroglyphics script via specific writing of these two names “RAMSSES’ clearly illustrates the dual principle “Ra” means “sun” in Coptic and in the cartouche the sun disk represented the idea of concept of the sun disk, with sound value “RA” in Egyptian on the Rosetta stone ,the sign at the end of the cartouche was used to write the letter “s” in the name Ptolemy ,enabling Champollion to read “RA”?s  s with a guess that the middle sign should read “m” he had the name RAMESES ,which he could explain further from his knowledge of Coptic as “Ra -Mise” or “RA” is the one who give birth to him .

Medicine life of ancient Egyptian :



From earliest times the ancient Egyptians were renowned for their knowledge of medicinal plants . By the time the papyrus Elbers was complied in the ninth year of the reign of Amenophis ( 1550 B .C ).About 900 remedies were being used by physician the majority of these remedies were derived from plants .Some 700 years after the marvelous work was achieved, the Greek poet, Homer wrote in the Odyssey of the many useful drugs, which he had been given to the daughter of Zeus (Helen ) by an Egyptian lady, Polydamna, the wife of Thoth .

The nile and the Egyptian calendar :



Since the down of history Egyptian the nile river was and still is the source of life and prosperity .they noticed the rise of the nil river once a year during the summer they divided the year into three seasons , four months each .the three seasons of the year were named according to the natural cycle . The first season was called “inundation” because the flood water covered the whole land for four months .the following season was called “Perit” which means the going out into the fields for cultivation . The last season was called “shemu” which means the harvest, the three seasons is still in use by both Coptic Church and the Egyptian farmer . As keen astronomers, they noticed the brightest star in the heavens called Sirius, located in the constellation Canis and named by them sopdet . The appearance of this star was just before the inundation season, a festival was celebrated in his honor every year . The sopdet year, or as commonly known now a days the Sothic year, almost exactly to the solar year the calendar year of 365 days was brought . Into use by the Egyptians at the beginning of a Sothic cycle which started during the reign of the king zoser the founder of the third dynasty ( 2686 – 2613 B .C ) and builder of the step pyramids . it is no wonder that when the Romans which to reform their calendar from lunar to solar year , an Egyptian scientist from Alexandria named sasigenes was invited by Julius Caesar to carry on that task he formulated the Julian calendar .this calendar was decreed by the emperor in the year 46B .C and used by the western world to measure time until 1582 A .D thus the Julian calendar which was used by the western world for more than .sixteen centuries was in fact an Egyptian both in origin and formulation

Fabrication of papyrus

The Modern paper is a direct descendant of ancient Egyptian papyrus .Egyptian papyrus was made from pith of cyperus, which grew abundantly in the delta marshes . The pith was separated and sliced into thin strips . The strips were immersed in water to keep their moisture and then glued side by side in two layers, horizontal and vertical . The sheets were pressed firmly to remove excess moisture . They were then beaten and smoothed . A scroll was composed of several sheets glued in sequence .
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The Egyptian art :



Egyptian art is highly symmetrical . Its most distinctive expression of symmetry is one of dualistic
Antithesis, wholes are represented as two, mutually complementing, yet clearly distinct components in so doing ,the artist reflects a consistent feature of Egyptian thought .
The land itself was regarded, as two geographically distinct “upper” and”lower”Egypt,the landscape commended the contrast between desert and cultivation ,yellow and green .Actually,the Nil halves the country into east and west . Many pictorial symbols were formed to illustrate duality . Such as Horus and Seth, Isis and Nephthys . The long, principal axis of the Egyptian temple made it easier for the artist to represent the symbols of dualism